Windows 10: Assitance needed: Surface Pro color profile switcher hangs explorer.exe after sleep

I'm having this issue after updating Windows to 1803 (although I've since updated to 1809), where the main explorer.exe process hangs without the usual "End Task" prompt. It happens randomly at times but most often it happens after resuming from sleep or hibernation (like 80% chance). The process hang behaves like a partial freeze of the system's UI: taskbar, action center and some keyboard shortcuts stop functioning properly or at all, although some things remain functional like interacting with desktop items and starting Task Manager from kb shortcut to restart explorer.

Firstly I've tried many settings one by one to try to find the cause:
1) Turning off activity sync (as some forums suggested)

2) Moving the desktop location out of OneDrive

3) Turning off "run folders in separated processes"

None had any effect.

In the end I've tried the last option that remained relevant and it worked, the hang issue disappeared after removing the Color Profile switch from the Action Center. The hang never came to be again!


Problem is this is not a solution but more of a workaround as I was using that switch quite often.

So there is why I'm posting here, in the looks for a permanent working solution.

What I haven't tried yet is re-enabling the Color Profile, and try to fix the hang by either terminating the "Surface Color Profile Tracker" process or restarting the service one. My guess for now is that some race condition is created from one of those two, but it is strange that explorer can't figure out its broken state. I will update the post if I manage to nail it to one of the two suspects

:)

 

Assitance needed: Surface Pro color profile switcher hangs explorer.exe after sleep

I'm having this issue after updating Windows to 1803 (although I've since updated to 1809), where the main explorer.exe process
hangs without the usual "End Task" prompt. It happens randomly at times but most often it happens after resuming from sleep or hibernation (like 80% chance). The process hang behaves like a partial freeze of the system's UI: taskbar, action center and
some keyboard shortcuts stop functioning properly or at all, although some things remain functional like interacting with desktop items and starting Task Manager from kb shortcut to restart explorer.

Firstly I've tried many settings one by one to try to find the cause:

1) Turning off activity sync (as some forums suggested)

2) Moving the desktop location out of OneDrive

3) Turning off "run folders in separated processes"

None had any effect.

In the end I've tried the last option that remained relevant and it worked, the hang issue disappeared after removing the Color Profile switch from the Action Center. The hang never came to be again!

Problem is this is not a solution but more of a workaround as I was using that switch quite often.

So there is why I'm posting here, in the looks for a permanent working solution.

What I haven't tried yet is re-enabling the Color Profile, and try to fix the hang by either terminating the "Surface Color Profile Tracker" process or restarting the service one. My guess for now is that some race condition is created from one of those two,
but it is strange that explorer can't figure out its broken state. I will update the post if I manage to nail it to one of the two suspects

Edit 28/01 : In the end i did the Windows reset. I will update later on if explorer hangs again or not.

 

Assitance needed: Surface Pro color profile switcher hangs explorer.exe after sleep

After a long tumble in darkness I decided to give Windows a refresh after the 1809 update. The re as on being that explorer still kept freezing even after removing the Color Profile button from Action Center as stated in the main post, so I was left clueless.
I will continue to evaluate the stability after the refresh.

 

Assitance needed: Surface Pro color profile switcher hangs explorer.exe after sleep

Hi,

Thank you for posting on Microsoft Community Forums.

There are several reasons that could trigger this issue, like the outdated graphics drivers, memory corruption, disk errors etc.

I would suggest to update the graphics driver and see if it works.

Update drivers in Windows 10

I would also recommend to check if there is any update available for BIOS.

On Surface devices, the firmware is exposed to the operating system as a driver and is visible in Device Manager. This allows a Surface device firmware to be automatically updated along with all drivers through Windows Update.
This mechanism provides a seamless, automatic experience to receive the latest firmware and driver updates. However, I would suggest to check manually for updates and see if there are any updates available for firmware.

Select Start and then go to Settings > Update
& Security > Windows Update, and select Check for updates.

Hope it helps.

Thanks,

Peer Samie

Microsoft Community-Moderator